Oh and in North America, you don't have to notify ANYONE when you move... not at all. You don't need to change your driver's licence, health card, phone, electricity, gas, water bills... nothing like that. They just follow you around anywhere you go right? Nevermind buying/renting a new house or property taxes or school taxes or anything like that...
In Germany if you move you have to deregister with the local authority (Stadt, Landkreis, etc) you're moving from, which takes all of 5 minutes, if that, then reregister with the new local authority you're moving to, which again takes all of 5 minutes. OMG such a disaster! Most bigger places even give you a nice bundle of brochures and a map and stuff like that to help you get your feet on the ground and feel at home. For me it was a really pleasant and painless process, even as a foreigner.
Don't think that just because you have to don't have to go and officially register with the government if you move in North America that it doesn't mean that they don't have the same ability to find out where you live in a matter of seconds.
I personally don't agree with the religion taxes (I never had to pay any), but hey it's an old world country, it's how they do things there. Just because it's not how you would personally do it, doesn't mean it's wrong. If you don't like it, don't pay. If you pay, be grateful for the hundreds and hundreds of beautiful churches you can go visit and even worship in if that's your thing. I'm not religious at all, but I still enjoy visiting churches in Europe because of their architecture (see the cathedral in Cologne if you have any questions), history and workmanship, especially the stained glass, wood and metal works inside. I'm not sure they do, but it would make sense if a portion or all of those taxes went to maintaining those buildings for the cultural benefit of everybody. Surely that can't be a bad thing.
Yes, the Canadian gov't will arrest anyone suspected of child sexual abuse in foreign countries upon landing back home. They go to court here and go to jail here if convicted. They've done it a number of times in the past and I'm sure that number won't stop growing, as disgusting as that is. Some people are just fucked up.
About the laws of your own country thing... should I have been arrested when I came back home for drinking alcohol in public in Europe? What about driving faster than 110km/h (the fastest legally allowable speed limit according to the Highway Traffic Act in my province)? That's completely absurd. I'm pretty sure that the only things the Canadian gov't can arrest you for, for offenses committed abroad, are child sexual abuse, terrorism, and anything on an international warrant. Since it's legal for me to drink in public in Europe then no warrant will be issued for my arrest. That would require that every single person in a country be immediately identifiable (in public and private) to local law enforcement, who would in return have to know every single law in every single country. Can you say... never gonna happen?
What about dual citizens? Whose laws would they have to follow?
Luckily Canada is a lot nicer than China, where if you say anything bad about their gov't whilst abroad, or even at home (and they hear about it), you get to have a nice sit down chat with some very pleasant individuals... </sarcasm>
Before cell phones existed, people took pictures at concerts and sporting events. This was also before the dawn of digital photography when everyone had film cameras. So only half your complaint holds up really, the preview screens weren't present before cell phones/digital photography, only the flashes. I remember watching sporting events and performances, both live and on tv, when I was a kid (way before camera phones and digicams) where there were constant camera flashes. Hell, play something like NHL 97 on the PC and watch the audience for a few seconds and you'll see camera flashes all the time. I'm sure if you played NHL 2007 you'd see the same thing. This is nothing new buddy.
Ok, so what you're after here is either an all out ban on photos at concerts/events (with the ban presumably including the press, so you'd be treading on their right to freedom of the press, which is infinitely more important than your "right" to not see stuff you think is annoying), or you somehow block visible light at concerts/events. If you blocked visible light, how would you see the performance or sporting event? Might as well stay home and listen on the radio or to the CD since that's pretty much equal to what you'd be doing at the show with the lights off.
off your field upon request. First they'll spray Round Up on every square inch and then come back when all the non-GM plants are dead and rip the ones that're still standing out of the ground. Sounds like a good deal doesn't it?
Why don't farmers have a legal edge by saying, "The plants all look the same, the seed all looks the same, how the hell are we supposed to be able to tell the difference simply by looking at it?? We don't have genetic engineering labs in our barns, how are we supposed to reasonably be able to figure out which is which?"
I've hated Monsanto with a passion ever since the first cross-contamination trials, yet more and more I see the signs in farmer's fields proudly displaying which strain of GM crop they're growing that year. My ex's uncle has a certified organic beef farm. It had to be tested and certified that no pesticides or herbicides were used anywhere on his land for the 7 years prior to his application. No idea whether they have to recheck every so often to keep the certification up. His land is mostly pasture for the cattle though.
Back to Monsanto though, how do they have the right to enter your fields and test your crops without consent? Isn't that trespassing, or even theft since they're taking seeds/plants for testing that may not actually be their "property"?
Speaking of the political donations and such, us Canucks have an excellent federal law (IMHO) that limits campaign contributions to $2000 per individual (be it person or corporation), period. Sure, the CEO, chairman of the board, managing directors etc etc can all individually donate $2000 out of their own pockets, as well as the company donating it's $2000, but it really curbs the massive multi-million dollar donations that political campaigns in the US get from all sorts of health insurance, oil, pharmaceutical, etc companies, and the thousands of lobby groups for various things. I'm sure we have all the same sorts of crap here in Canada, but their influence ($$$) is limited by law.
Maybe that's something the US government should look at... doubt it'd ever happen though.
You do realize that they tell you to shut them off during take-off and landing so you ACTUALLY PAY ATTENTION to any orders given by staff or the captain in case of having to do an emergency landing or maneuver? Imagine you're listening to your iPod (which you have cranked up to a higher than usual volume to make up for the added noise level in the cabin) and BRACE BRACE comes over the PA system and you don't hear it because you think you're cool listening to your iPod when they said not to... I hope all you rebels enjoy taking a big bite out of the seat in front of you at whatever speed the plane was travelling at the time of impact.
As for interfering with critical flight systems, who knows? I haven't read any conclusive evidence either way.
Whatever the flight crew told you about bringing the plane down in flames is complete bullshit, but there is a damn good reason for the ban on electronics during the most dangerous and error prone portions of flight: take-off and landing.
Regarding the money from the political lobbies, it would be maximum $5,000 each. The previous Liberal government passed a law preventing limitless campaign donations. Probably one of the smarter pieces of legislation in the past decade...
I was over at my friend's place a month or two ago and we were talking about the cartoons we used to watch in our children. Turns out we ended up watching mostly the same things, except a couple shows, one of which was, Saber Rider & the Star Sheriffs (he's German, so watched it in German). He had such good memories of it that he even bought the DVD set of the first season (also in German). He has since rewatched the first season, still enjoyed it and actually understood what was going on a lot better than as a child. Since I had never heard of it, we decided to watch the first episode. I quickly caught on that the horse's name was Steed, yet my friend thought as a child, and up to the second I pointed it out to him, that the horse's name was Steve. I had to explain that steed is a synonym of horse and he immediately accused me of ruining his childhood memories of the show... not seriously though, but he did feel pretty stupid.
Now this begs the question, do memories need to be perfect? No, I don't think they do. If it makes you happy as a memory, who cares if it's accurate. In most fish stories, the fish gets bigger the further away from the water you get. Also most people embellish or exaggerate stories to make them better. I guess like movies and books, if it's slightly unbelievable it makes for a better story.
The moment China will start caring is the moment copyrighted materials from THEIR country are being counterfeited/p2p'd EN MASSE, WORLDWIDE just like the American MAFIAA is currently experiencing in China. I'm sure copyright infringement/filesharing is done on a relatively minor scale, certainly not to the extent of Hollywood materials.
Once the tables turn, we'll start to see the Chinese MAFIAA (if one even exists??) pushing their national gov't to complain to the WTO for sanctions against other countries, but never before then.
A little history nugget... in 1905 Robertson originally used the round slot instead of the square slot. Due to limited popularity, it was scrapped and switched to the more ubiquitous square slot. And that's where the usage of "square" meaning normal and boring originated.
Hah! So, let me get this straight...
He used a ROUND slot on a screw? How exactly would that allow you to turn the screw and get any torque? I would guess that the popularity of such an asinine, half-baked invention was limited, and rightly so. I suppose in his infinite shame at having invented the most pointless thing ever, Robertson had a moment of wisdom and came up with the square headed screw & driver.
Are you sure you read that little "history nugget" correctly?
Or if your product is not destined for Canada, use Robertson screws. This wonderful screw type has been around for almost 100 years now and according to the Wikipedia article, about 85% of screws sold in Canada are Robertsons, so don't try using them for a security screw in Canada because everybody and their dog has at least a couple Robertsons in their tool collections. Anywhere else in the world I'm sure it would be fine though.
Wouldn't the actual time saved by writing in txt spk be negligible? What are the actual benefits of being able to write like this? If you're too stupid to know the real spelling of a word, then you should probably not be sitting the exams:P
One reason why txt spk is so prevalent among texters is that people try to cram as much info into an SMS as possible without going over the 160 character limit (1 message). It's simple, its cheaper. I don't think the problem lies in the quality of T9 or whatever recognition system you're using, but the fact that 160 characters is often not enough to contain your whole message if you typed it out using the correct spelling. I have an unlimited in-country texting package and I would rarely, if ever, use abbreviations, except that my mobile (Nokia 6225) doesn't automatically extend the message. Once you fill up the 160 chars, you can't type anymore.
Those are only a couple reasons why someone might use it, but it still doesn't give you an excuse to use it for any academic or exam writing purpose (unless of course you were writing a paper on the phenomenon itself). It's just scandalous that it would even be considered in the first place...
Say I have an encrypted drive on my computer and its seized by the authorities? Is that not impeding access to a computer system?
Also I totally agree with the earlier statement on REAL damage. Say a company's website is down and they sell things online. Someone who was really intent on buying something from that website will wait until its back up. Someone who was just shopping around will likely continue to do so, and the casual websurfer would pass it by, perhaps trying again later. They're really not LOSING any business, they're merely delaying it till later. How many individuals'/organisations' business would they honestly lose? There's no way of knowing, so they just pull a number out of their ass and say "This much!" and expect to be rewarded that amount, plus legal expenses of course.
Now say the victim is an individual in their home. Can they claim damages under this law? Most likely not since they're not "losing" anything (in a business sense), other than access to a service they've paid for. Sure you can ring up your provider and complain but they'll probably blame it on you and tell you its your computer being full of spyware and viruses and you should reinstall Windows. If you tell them you run *nix they'll probably say I'm sorry that's not supported we can't help you. Big firms (*cough* BT *cough) are all too happy to blame the customer first.
So what this boils down to is that we've now got yet another lovely new law that's beneficial to big business and no one else. Oh happy day!
doesn't the RIAA actually prosecute people based on UPLOADING songs and not downloading them? IIRC they catch you by observing you uploading songs to others (ie. you have sharing enabled) and download songs from you as evidence, then subpoena the ISP logs, etc, etc.
Then that leads to the question: If you disabled sharing, wouldn't that protect you from their lawyers?
I think it'd be pretty tough for them to pretend to be a regular user sharing lots of songs on, say, Limewire, offering them freely for download, then subpoenaing the people who download them... actually that's entrapment, isn't it?
I'm glad the judge in this case isn't a pushover. Americans deserve a better justice system than that.
Cam
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Oh and in North America, you don't have to notify ANYONE when you move... not at all. You don't need to change your driver's licence, health card, phone, electricity, gas, water bills... nothing like that. They just follow you around anywhere you go right? Nevermind buying/renting a new house or property taxes or school taxes or anything like that...
In Germany if you move you have to deregister with the local authority (Stadt, Landkreis, etc) you're moving from, which takes all of 5 minutes, if that, then reregister with the new local authority you're moving to, which again takes all of 5 minutes. OMG such a disaster! Most bigger places even give you a nice bundle of brochures and a map and stuff like that to help you get your feet on the ground and feel at home. For me it was a really pleasant and painless process, even as a foreigner.
Don't think that just because you have to don't have to go and officially register with the government if you move in North America that it doesn't mean that they don't have the same ability to find out where you live in a matter of seconds.
I personally don't agree with the religion taxes (I never had to pay any), but hey it's an old world country, it's how they do things there. Just because it's not how you would personally do it, doesn't mean it's wrong. If you don't like it, don't pay. If you pay, be grateful for the hundreds and hundreds of beautiful churches you can go visit and even worship in if that's your thing. I'm not religious at all, but I still enjoy visiting churches in Europe because of their architecture (see the cathedral in Cologne if you have any questions), history and workmanship, especially the stained glass, wood and metal works inside. I'm not sure they do, but it would make sense if a portion or all of those taxes went to maintaining those buildings for the cultural benefit of everybody. Surely that can't be a bad thing.
Yes, the Canadian gov't will arrest anyone suspected of child sexual abuse in foreign countries upon landing back home. They go to court here and go to jail here if convicted. They've done it a number of times in the past and I'm sure that number won't stop growing, as disgusting as that is. Some people are just fucked up.
About the laws of your own country thing... should I have been arrested when I came back home for drinking alcohol in public in Europe? What about driving faster than 110km/h (the fastest legally allowable speed limit according to the Highway Traffic Act in my province)? That's completely absurd. I'm pretty sure that the only things the Canadian gov't can arrest you for, for offenses committed abroad, are child sexual abuse, terrorism, and anything on an international warrant. Since it's legal for me to drink in public in Europe then no warrant will be issued for my arrest. That would require that every single person in a country be immediately identifiable (in public and private) to local law enforcement, who would in return have to know every single law in every single country. Can you say... never gonna happen?
What about dual citizens? Whose laws would they have to follow?
Luckily Canada is a lot nicer than China, where if you say anything bad about their gov't whilst abroad, or even at home (and they hear about it), you get to have a nice sit down chat with some very pleasant individuals... </sarcasm>
Before cell phones existed, people took pictures at concerts and sporting events. This was also before the dawn of digital photography when everyone had film cameras. So only half your complaint holds up really, the preview screens weren't present before cell phones/digital photography, only the flashes. I remember watching sporting events and performances, both live and on tv, when I was a kid (way before camera phones and digicams) where there were constant camera flashes. Hell, play something like NHL 97 on the PC and watch the audience for a few seconds and you'll see camera flashes all the time. I'm sure if you played NHL 2007 you'd see the same thing. This is nothing new buddy.
Ok, so what you're after here is either an all out ban on photos at concerts/events (with the ban presumably including the press, so you'd be treading on their right to freedom of the press, which is infinitely more important than your "right" to not see stuff you think is annoying), or you somehow block visible light at concerts/events. If you blocked visible light, how would you see the performance or sporting event? Might as well stay home and listen on the radio or to the CD since that's pretty much equal to what you'd be doing at the show with the lights off.
Get real...
off your field upon request. First they'll spray Round Up on every square inch and then come back when all the non-GM plants are dead and rip the ones that're still standing out of the ground. Sounds like a good deal doesn't it?
Why don't farmers have a legal edge by saying, "The plants all look the same, the seed all looks the same, how the hell are we supposed to be able to tell the difference simply by looking at it?? We don't have genetic engineering labs in our barns, how are we supposed to reasonably be able to figure out which is which?"
I've hated Monsanto with a passion ever since the first cross-contamination trials, yet more and more I see the signs in farmer's fields proudly displaying which strain of GM crop they're growing that year. My ex's uncle has a certified organic beef farm. It had to be tested and certified that no pesticides or herbicides were used anywhere on his land for the 7 years prior to his application. No idea whether they have to recheck every so often to keep the certification up. His land is mostly pasture for the cattle though.
Back to Monsanto though, how do they have the right to enter your fields and test your crops without consent? Isn't that trespassing, or even theft since they're taking seeds/plants for testing that may not actually be their "property"?
Speaking of the political donations and such, us Canucks have an excellent federal law (IMHO) that limits campaign contributions to $2000 per individual (be it person or corporation), period. Sure, the CEO, chairman of the board, managing directors etc etc can all individually donate $2000 out of their own pockets, as well as the company donating it's $2000, but it really curbs the massive multi-million dollar donations that political campaigns in the US get from all sorts of health insurance, oil, pharmaceutical, etc companies, and the thousands of lobby groups for various things. I'm sure we have all the same sorts of crap here in Canada, but their influence ($$$) is limited by law.
Maybe that's something the US government should look at... doubt it'd ever happen though.
You do realize that they tell you to shut them off during take-off and landing so you ACTUALLY PAY ATTENTION to any orders given by staff or the captain in case of having to do an emergency landing or maneuver? Imagine you're listening to your iPod (which you have cranked up to a higher than usual volume to make up for the added noise level in the cabin) and BRACE BRACE comes over the PA system and you don't hear it because you think you're cool listening to your iPod when they said not to... I hope all you rebels enjoy taking a big bite out of the seat in front of you at whatever speed the plane was travelling at the time of impact.
As for interfering with critical flight systems, who knows? I haven't read any conclusive evidence either way.
Whatever the flight crew told you about bringing the plane down in flames is complete bullshit, but there is a damn good reason for the ban on electronics during the most dangerous and error prone portions of flight: take-off and landing.
Regarding the money from the political lobbies, it would be maximum $5,000 each. The previous Liberal government passed a law preventing limitless campaign donations. Probably one of the smarter pieces of legislation in the past decade...
A perfect example of memories not being perfect:
I was over at my friend's place a month or two ago and we were talking about the cartoons we used to watch in our children. Turns out we ended up watching mostly the same things, except a couple shows, one of which was, Saber Rider & the Star Sheriffs (he's German, so watched it in German). He had such good memories of it that he even bought the DVD set of the first season (also in German). He has since rewatched the first season, still enjoyed it and actually understood what was going on a lot better than as a child. Since I had never heard of it, we decided to watch the first episode. I quickly caught on that the horse's name was Steed, yet my friend thought as a child, and up to the second I pointed it out to him, that the horse's name was Steve. I had to explain that steed is a synonym of horse and he immediately accused me of ruining his childhood memories of the show... not seriously though, but he did feel pretty stupid.
Now this begs the question, do memories need to be perfect? No, I don't think they do. If it makes you happy as a memory, who cares if it's accurate. In most fish stories, the fish gets bigger the further away from the water you get. Also most people embellish or exaggerate stories to make them better. I guess like movies and books, if it's slightly unbelievable it makes for a better story.
The moment China will start caring is the moment copyrighted materials from THEIR country are being counterfeited/p2p'd EN MASSE, WORLDWIDE just like the American MAFIAA is currently experiencing in China. I'm sure copyright infringement/filesharing is done on a relatively minor scale, certainly not to the extent of Hollywood materials.
Once the tables turn, we'll start to see the Chinese MAFIAA (if one even exists??) pushing their national gov't to complain to the WTO for sanctions against other countries, but never before then.
Hah! So, let me get this straight...
He used a ROUND slot on a screw? How exactly would that allow you to turn the screw and get any torque? I would guess that the popularity of such an asinine, half-baked invention was limited, and rightly so. I suppose in his infinite shame at having invented the most pointless thing ever, Robertson had a moment of wisdom and came up with the square headed screw & driver.
Are you sure you read that little "history nugget" correctly?
Cam
Or if your product is not destined for Canada, use Robertson screws. This wonderful screw type has been around for almost 100 years now and according to the Wikipedia article, about 85% of screws sold in Canada are Robertsons, so don't try using them for a security screw in Canada because everybody and their dog has at least a couple Robertsons in their tool collections. Anywhere else in the world I'm sure it would be fine though.
Cam
Wouldn't the actual time saved by writing in txt spk be negligible? What are the actual benefits of being able to write like this? If you're too stupid to know the real spelling of a word, then you should probably not be sitting the exams :P
One reason why txt spk is so prevalent among texters is that people try to cram as much info into an SMS as possible without going over the 160 character limit (1 message). It's simple, its cheaper. I don't think the problem lies in the quality of T9 or whatever recognition system you're using, but the fact that 160 characters is often not enough to contain your whole message if you typed it out using the correct spelling. I have an unlimited in-country texting package and I would rarely, if ever, use abbreviations, except that my mobile (Nokia 6225) doesn't automatically extend the message. Once you fill up the 160 chars, you can't type anymore.
Those are only a couple reasons why someone might use it, but it still doesn't give you an excuse to use it for any academic or exam writing purpose (unless of course you were writing a paper on the phenomenon itself). It's just scandalous that it would even be considered in the first place...
Say I have an encrypted drive on my computer and its seized by the authorities? Is that not impeding access to a computer system?
Also I totally agree with the earlier statement on REAL damage. Say a company's website is down and they sell things online. Someone who was really intent on buying something from that website will wait until its back up. Someone who was just shopping around will likely continue to do so, and the casual websurfer would pass it by, perhaps trying again later. They're really not LOSING any business, they're merely delaying it till later. How many individuals'/organisations' business would they honestly lose? There's no way of knowing, so they just pull a number out of their ass and say "This much!" and expect to be rewarded that amount, plus legal expenses of course.
Now say the victim is an individual in their home. Can they claim damages under this law? Most likely not since they're not "losing" anything (in a business sense), other than access to a service they've paid for. Sure you can ring up your provider and complain but they'll probably blame it on you and tell you its your computer being full of spyware and viruses and you should reinstall Windows. If you tell them you run *nix they'll probably say I'm sorry that's not supported we can't help you. Big firms (*cough* BT *cough) are all too happy to blame the customer first.
So what this boils down to is that we've now got yet another lovely new law that's beneficial to big business and no one else. Oh happy day!
Cam
doesn't the RIAA actually prosecute people based on UPLOADING songs and not downloading them? IIRC they catch you by observing you uploading songs to others (ie. you have sharing enabled) and download songs from you as evidence, then subpoena the ISP logs, etc, etc. Then that leads to the question: If you disabled sharing, wouldn't that protect you from their lawyers? I think it'd be pretty tough for them to pretend to be a regular user sharing lots of songs on, say, Limewire, offering them freely for download, then subpoenaing the people who download them... actually that's entrapment, isn't it? I'm glad the judge in this case isn't a pushover. Americans deserve a better justice system than that. Cam